Directors paid €9,535,000
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ANGLO Irish Bank paid a whopping €9.5m to its directors last year, virtually unchanged from 2007, even though no directors at the now nationalised bank received bonuses during 2008.
Accounts published yesterday also reveal that former Anglo chief executive David Drumm, who resigned in the wake of the loans scandal, actually received a total of €4.65m in 2007. That's 42pc, or nearly €1.4m more than the €3.27m that the institution had indicated he'd been paid in 2007.
It has also emerged that disgraced former chairman Sean FitzPatrick got a 22pc pay rise last year, pocketing €525,000. On top of that, he received €14,000 in benefits, having received no such payment the previous year.
Mr Drumm elected to receive a taxable cash allowance of €1.65m in 2007 for pension benefits forgone.
In the bank's 2007 accounts it was stated that he had received a pension benefit of €274,000.
Anglo said that in the absence of an agreed basis for compensation when the 2007 financial statements were approved on November 27, 2007, it had been able to disclose only the €274,000 figure.
Top brass at Anglo Irish Bank have been among the best paid of all financial institutions in the country, and including costs incurred by the company in relation to share options and shares granted to directors in 2008, the total remuneration package was €11.5m.
Declan Quilligan, the only original executive director to survive the board cull, saw his basic salary soar by more than 24pc in 2008 to €602,000. He received additional pension payments of €161,000 during the year to bring his package to over €760,000. That's just slightly more than the entire bonus he received in 2007.
The bank also paid €160,000 back in 2007 in relation to Mr Quilligan's relocation to the UK. He has been appointed chief operating officer at Anglo.
Resigned
Another executive board member, Pat Whelan, managing director of the bank's lending business in Ireland, received a total of €650,000 last year. He has since resigned from the board but remains in his current position.
Anglo's former non-executive directors, who resigned en-masse as the bank was nationalised last month, also received marked hikes in the fees they received from the institution during the last financial year.
Ned Sullivan, currently chairman of Eircom, received a 36pc pay rise at Anglo to bring his fees to €147,000. Anne Heraty, boss of listed recruitment firm CPL Resources, got a 33pc rise to €110,000.
Lar Bradshaw received 25pc more, being awarded €100,000.
The former non-executive director resigned in December after it emerged that he had taken out a loan with Sean FitzPatrick that was among those that had been temporarily transferred to Irish Nationwide Building Society by the then Anglo chairman before the bank's financial year-end.
Mr Bradshaw said he had no knowledge of the transfer.
Anglo Irish Bank confirmed yesterday that since the beginning of January this year, all non-executive director fees at the institution have been cut by 20pc.
However, that will still result in potential payments at more than the 2007 level.
- John Mulligan
